Since the lead up to the 2017 Conservation Optimism Summit in London, we have been using the #conservationoptimism hashtag to help amplify the voices of conservation optimists around the world, and to make it easy to find conservation optimism stories on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media channels.

One of our core goals with Conservation Optimism is to become a repository of stories that inspire hope and action in conservation. Community members are welcome and encouraged to submit posts that tell a story about a specific example of #conservationoptimism by selecting the “Optimism” category under the “New Article” tab of their profiles, and these will be posted pending moderator review. Users are encouraged to write their posts in their own native language, and all community members can use our integrated Google Translation services to read them in their preferred language.

Another of our aims with Conservation Optimism is to be a hub for blogs that focus on various themes, ideas, and issues that relate to the core concept of conservation optimism in some way. Community members are welcome and encouraged to submit posts that aren’t specific examples of conservation optimism, but which reflect on or explore some facet of conservation optimism with the “Blog” category selected, and these will be posted pending moderator review.

Something else we are striving to create here on Conservation Optimism is an opportunity for conservation optimists to connect with one another and dialogue informally through our forums, chat, and social networking features. If you have a Facebook account, you are welcome to login with a single click and get your profile set up in seconds. For those who do not use Facebook, community members can also join with an email address and fill out their profile manually.

Finally, we hope to also offer resources here on Conservation Optimism to empower our community to make a more effective impact for conservation, both locally and globally. We will be constantly linking to new resources generated by our #conservationoptimism community members, and then facilitate growth and community-directed discussion via our forums.